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Barbara W. Tuchman Quote

No one dared tell the outcome of the battle to Philip VI until his jester was thrust forward and said, Oh, the cowardly English, the cowardly English! and on being asked why, replied, They did not jump overboard like our brave Frenchmen. The King evidently got the point. The fish drank so much French blood, it was said afterward, that if God had given them the power of speech they would have spoken in French.

Barbara W. Tuchman

No one dared tell the outcome of the battle to Philip VI until his jester was thrust forward and said, Oh, the cowardly English, the cowardly English! and on being asked why, replied, They did not jump overboard like our brave Frenchmen. The King evidently got the point. The fish drank so much French blood, it was said afterward, that if God had given them the power of speech they would have spoken in French.

Tags: medieval history

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About Barbara W. Tuchman

Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (; January 30, 1912 – February 6, 1989) was an American historian and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August (1962), a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1971), a biography of General Joseph Stilwell.Tuchman focused on writing popular history.